Democrat Stacey Abrams’ refusal to concede and her challenge to the legitimacy of the election after losing a close race for governor in Georgia would have stunned the nation if not for the frequency of such alarming claims.

From Democrat Andrew Gillum withdrawing his concession at one point in Florida’s governor’s race to objections — including a congressional challenge to the Electoral College vote — in all three Republican presidential victories this century, Democrats increasingly level accusations of trickery and illegality to explain their election loses.

But Republicans didn’t issue similar claims of illegitimacy when Barack Obama won the White House, despite activists from the liberal group ACORN being convicted for voter registration fraud or election fraud in such states as Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.

“You have a Democrat Party that has a long history of stealing [elections] whose defense is to attack everybody else,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican who represented Georgia. “It’s a strategy.”

Mr. Gingrich argued that Democrats these days present themselves as presumed winners, whether in a swing state like Florida or a red state like Texas, with the angle of thus being able to challenge any election result that does not go their way.

“It’s almost as if they believe they have a divine right to win. So if they lose in Georgia or they lose in Alabama it must have been stolen,” he said.

Indeed, such prominent Democrats as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Sherrod Brown of Ohio declared that the only way Ms. Abrams could have lost the election was if she had been cheated. They didn’t change their position after the election was called in favor of Republican Brian Kemp.